The Ring
by Carrie L
Summary: Immediately after Endgame, Chakotay remembers something important. My first fanfic.


**Note: **A moment right after Endgame, in which Chakotay remembers something important.

**The Ring**

He stood in front of the replicator staring. This was madness. She would laugh – or no, worse, that look of eloquent concern would steal over her face, the one she reserved for a crewman or woman who had just embarrassed himself or herself beyond retrieval and could only fall on the captain's tender mercy. And she was tender. Under the bravado and iron lady determination, he knew her tender heart. She would pity him for cherishing this earnest dream all these years, since nearly the first moment she blocked his armed advance onto her bridge with a body half his size. She would try to distract him, offer him a new blend of tea, touch him in some familiar, soothing way as she explained that no, she had never really thought of them having a future together. Or worse – he kept thinking of worse worst case scenarios, other things he couldn't bear – that she had thought of it, but that time had worn away what they once had like the rush of water down a canyon, or erased it like the flash of a nebula visible across deep space from the view screen, stunning and then gone.

The ring was perfect, he knew that much. The only adornment he'd ever seen on her was a combadge. She'd never worn Mark's ring, if there ever was one. On duty, it would be out of uniform, and off duty he could only imagine that it was too painful a reminder of what she'd abandoned when she ordered the destruction of the Caretaker's array. He had never seen it. He didn't need to see it. Whatever Mark knew or felt about her, he could never know her or love her as well as the man who'd been by her side, round the clock many days, for seven straight years.

He'd watched what she admired in alien space stations, or at bazaars on now-distant worlds. She seldom acquired anything for herself, but on the day when she picked up a brilliant blue stone resembling an Earth sapphire, he was on the far side of the stand, watching the way she stood open-mouthed in delight at the way light fell from the gem, letting her face reflect genuine emotion for a change. He remembered everything: slipping behind her toward the display as she moved away, trading a few precious stones of his own for the alien jewel, then tucking it away for the day when he'd have the right to offer it back to her. He would always remember, no matter what she said when he made a fool of himself in a few minutes.

He put out a hand to palm the tiny, precious ornament. Familiar stars were at the portals and rations were a thing of the past. If he were to grant himself one indulgence after all the sacrifices of these seven years, it would be this: a chance at a life with Kathryn. The risk might cost him everything. Their friendship had been his guidestar, his peace, the place where he sought answers and resolutions even at his angriest, because outside her orbit was only darkness. Those words had come to him as he tried to explain his sudden change of heart to Seven. He couldn't say them to her, but there they were, the essential truth of his existence.

Seven had been unblinking before the Astrometrics screen that dwarfed them both. "I thought you wished to remain within transporter distance of me," she said, not asking but telling.

"I do. That can mean many things. And I didn't want to end our relationship out of fear of what the Admiral said to you. We both deserve better than that." As he spoke these words, he caught himself staring down at the toe of his boot as it stubbed at the threadbare carpet across which Seven paced from console to console a thousand times a day, like a little boy caught telling a white lie to the teacher. In some ways, Seven already seemed older than he was. He drew himself up and made himself look at her.

Seven tapped a panel absent-mindedly with her left hand, creating a metallic click, half consumed by the fascination of a star system completely alien to her, half listening to him. "Why have you changed your mind, then?"

Chakotay resisted the temptation to start playing with an instrument panel. "I think… I think I didn't really believe we'd get home. There have been so many failed attempts. It seemed absurd to make any plans assuming that it would really happen this time. Most of me believed that we'd just go along as we had been."

Seven lifted an eye in his direction but moved her right hand to join her left at the console, turning away even as he struggled to connect and communicate. "And now things are different?"

He nodded, a little embarrassed to discover that the emotion he felt was a flood of relief.

"Yes. Now that it's real, I think we should both consider what it will mean. You'll have so many opportunities. I might be in the way." He studied her elegant profile, the sweep of her hair against her perfect skull. It reminded him of the way Kathryn used to wear her hair, the stern upsweep eternally maintained until gradually, as time and space battered them all, her hair came down and something both loosened and hardened in her. A sudden realization made him smile to himself – he couldn't even look at Seven without thinking of Kathryn. What was he doing here? But everything was coming in sevens now. Seven years, the seven days a week he'd been a fool, and Seven herself now lifting both hands from the console and turning to face him with one eyebrow arched in an expression she must have copied from Tuvok, probably deliberately. "You are not doing this because of my _opportunities_. Why are you doing it?" Her voice was unemotional, curious. He had to laugh.

"You're right, Seven. I never could put anything past you." He paused, trying to find words to explain the truth of his feelings for Kathryn without betraying the awkward reality that he was dumping Seven without any certainty that Kathryn returned his feelings. It was then that the orbital metaphor came to him, perfect and useless in the situation. Breaking up with a woman by explaining to her how helplessly he was in love with another was not prudent, even with a Borg. He sighed.

"You have feelings for someone else," she said, arms still at her sides, relaxed. At least she was taking it well. He caught himself staring past her at the orbital patterns mapped on the screen, planets and moons in their exquisitely timed dance. He thought of things like fate and destiny that hadn't crossed his mind in years, then dragged his eyes back to her pretty, dispassionate face, where nothing moved, nothing danced. She watched him clinically, reading his discomfort, the body language she had never learned and he had never learned to hide.

"Yes," he nodded, wrapping one hand around his own fist. "I'm sorry, Seven. While we were out there, it didn't matter. It could never matter. And now – "

"Now you wish to form a pair bond with Captain Janeway. It is perfectly logical. You will no longer be restrained by the chain of command." Seven nodded briskly and turned back to her console, as if the matter were settled.

Had she really understood all that, all this time, even as she was innocently asking him on dates? He staggered a little. "You make it sound so calculating, Seven," he began, mortified, moving close to her tall shoulder. He was struck again by her stature, how she dwarfed Kathryn physically yet lacked anything like the same presence. "I never meant you to be some kind of replacement. I was sincere in everything I said to you. I just – I made a mistake. I got lost somewhere out there."

She was initiating some new calculation of the ship's trajectory past the outer planets of Earth's solar system, concentrating on her own flying fingers. When the last command was entered, she lifted her head toward him. "What you said to me is irrelevant. And you are correct, I will have many opportunities in the alpha quadrant. This is best for both of us. I wish you every happiness with the captain." She might lack Kathryn's command presence, but her dismissals were definitive.

"Thank you, Seven," he said weakly. He reached out a hand, intending to give her a friendly embrace, but she stood so stiffly at attention that he wound up patting her bony lycra shoulder like some sort of awkward professor on the last day of class. She refocused her attention on the readings beginning to fill the screen. He fled.

Now, off duty, aware of Kathryn waiting in her quarters with her latest attempt at an edible meal for the two of them, he continued to stare at the ring in his hand and cursed himself in his native tongue. Klingon would've been more satisfying. He wanted to call himself a coward twelve different ways and attack this obstacle with a batleth rather than the meager tools at hand, his own shaking hands and voice. But she was waiting. He had not shrunk from resigning his Starfleet commission and captaining a ship of rebels to almost certain death against a brutal, ruthless enemy. He would not be defeated by the prospect of walking ten meters up the corridor to be rejected by the woman he loved. He'd prefer Cardassians any day, but this was the battle at hand.

The ring safely tucked into a waist pocket on his favorite vest, the one she'd touched so long ago, he rang her chime.

"The very last bottle of Antarian cider!" he exclaimed when she came to the door, laying the dark bottle in her hands. A prop was necessary to begin this evening. He offered it with enthusiasm. She looked up at him in surprise.

"The very last one? Really?" She had that fond, quizzical look on her face that he liked to think she reserved for the little surprises he planned for her. She was wearing her blue dress and stood barefoot and tiny in the door's aperture, an Alpha quadrant welcoming angel, something he'd dreamed up. She must be able to hear his heart pounding in his chest as he tried to come up with calm, casual words to answer her.

"It must have been fate," he smiled. She hadn't moved to let him walk in. Something unreadable – a cloud, a reflection – moved across her face.

"Fate indeed. I have a few choice words for fate, if the opportunity ever comes," she said at last and stepped back into the dimmer light to let him pass. Evidently she was thinking of missed opportunities herself tonight. There were abundant flowers on the table and around the room, but none of the candles she had put out for their dinners for so many years. She gestured at the bouquets. "Some of the crew thought I needed flowers to welcome me home. Aren't they lovely?"

Some of the crew? He bitterly chided himself. They should have been from him. He should have sent her roses, walked in with his arms full of them. He was getting this wrong and he hadn't started. He'd only get one chance before the army of admirers met her at Starfleet headquarters and he was relegated to an entry on her holiday gift list.

"I was thinking trees," he said without thinking, turning around to admire the flowers.

"Trees?" she echoed, setting the bottle on the table. "What do you mean, trees?"

"I want to plant trees for us all," he told her, caressing the table arrangement with one hand. "To commemorate the years we spent together, the friends we made, the friends we lost. Something with roots in dirt that will grow and last."

Her face grew softer as she looked from the flowers to him. "That's a beautiful idea. And I know just the spot to plant them. Wait 'til you see it." She hesitated for a moment, as if caught up in something she was imagining, then shook off the reverie and turned toward her replicator. "Have a seat. I have high hopes for this one!"

"I haven't heard any fire alarms yet," he teased.

She shook her head as she set a dish of something hot but unburned between them and sat down opposite him. "If my own reputation didn't precede me so convincingly, you'd pay for that kind of remark."

"It smells wonderful," he assured her, reaching for the cider and the corkscrew.

She waved a serving spoon at him accusingly. "It should, it's your recipe."

He pulled expertly at the cork until it popped with a satisfying sigh. She raised the first toast. "To all our working dinners," she offered. "I'm going to miss these. The way you've been cancelling on me lately, I wasn't sure I'd get even this last one."

"About that – " he sipped quickly, set down his glass and leaned in. "I haven't been – "

"No no," she waved away his explanation. "You don't have to make excuses to me. This was never a mandatory activity, just a pleasant way to pass the time. But I will miss it. I hope we can still have dinner together once in a while back on Earth, or wherever life takes us."

He sat back, chastened. She was already thinking of their parting. This might be just as awkward and awful as he'd feared. "I hope to have dinner with you very often," he answered.

"That would be nice," she said without looking at him, raising her glass for a long drink of cider. She positioned the glass next to her plate and took a deep breath, the way she did just before launching into something required but not necessarily pleasant.

He felt his shoulders tilt toward her as the warm rush of concern moved out from his heart in her direction, as it always did, irresistibly. "What is it, Kathryn?"

"What's what?" she looked up with exaggerated innocence. "Oh, you. Don't worry. I suppose I'm just getting nostalgic in advance. In a few days everything will be so different. I don't know if I'm quite prepared." She picked up her napkin and tried to put it in her lap but somehow wound up fussing with the cloth until she gave up and tossed it onto her legs in a wad.

He reached one hand over and took hers as it hovered anxiously above the table. "You seem nervous." He tried to catch her eyes, but she was observing the flowers very deliberately. His mind raced ahead, looking for signs of how she might react. She couldn't possibly know about the ring, but did she somehow guess that he wanted to talk about the two of them? Was she trying to deter him, preserve their hard-won détente?

"Chrysanthemums," she said suddenly, then laughed in a high-pitched tone. "The flower of death. Whoever did the flower arranging must have neglected the language of flowers in school." She plucked a puffy red chrysanthemum from the arrangement and twirled its stem between her fingers. Her other hand - far too cold for the temperature of the room – held his tightly.

"What would you like your flowers to talk about?" he asked. Her look grew thoughtful as she regarded the mum.

"Maybe daffodils," she answered, still not looking at him, "for new beginnings. Or irises for friendship, and hope."

He smiled down at her chilly little hand. It was unimaginable that she would ever stop surprising him, stop showing him new sides to an endlessly complex personality. "How does a starship captain happen to learn the language of flowers?"

"You forget that I was a science officer. Extra credit for a long forgotten botany class, but that part I remembered." She gave him her own smile, bolstered by the reference to something she knew, an answer she could give with confidence. The smile strengthened him.

"Kathryn, there's something I need to ask you," he said, holding her hand firmly when she tried gently to draw it back. Her expression went instantly from confident to terrified – or as much terror as Kathryn Janeway would ever willingly show anybody. It almost stopped him cold, but he'd sworn to himself to see this through. She took in a long breath and lifted her chin with as much stiff-backed courage as if there had been Kazon at the door. Her upper lip trembled, but so slightly that only he – who knew her face all too well – would have noticed.

"Of course. Anything." Her eyes met his, full of a fear he didn't dare define but facing it full on. Spirits, she was brave. He wouldn't have believed it was possible, but looking at her now, he loved her even more. He took a deep breath himself. Showtime.

"We've been through just about everything together, you and I. You've been my best friend aboard this ship. Probably the best friend I've ever had." He wanted to take her other hand, too, but through the glass table he could see her gripping the stem of the mum in her lap like a hidden phaser.

"And you mine," she answered evenly, in a voice almost as emotionless as Seven's. Her eyes held his as if her life depended on standing her ground and meeting whatever he threw at her. This was Janeway in full battle armor, magnificent and ferociously intimidating. Could she have guessed? Was she warning him off? The chill of her hand was creeping up his arm, stealing around his heart. His cowardice reared his head and suggested a traitorous way out – he could ask what she'd heard about the Maquis, how Starfleet would treat them. It was the other thing that had been occupying him day and night. She would accept it as the urgent question it was. He would be off the hook. _Coward!_ He gritted his teeth and plunged onward.

"You said once that you couldn't imagine a day without me, and I've always felt the same." He paused and watched for some reaction. Her face was frozen, only her eyes darting nervously between his eyes and the spot on the table where his hand pinned hers. "And now I find that I can't imagine leaving this ship and being without you."

Her eyebrows twitched and came together in an expression of pained confusion. "I – what are you asking me, Chakotay?" she whispered. He let go of her hand and her eyes grew wider, almost panicked. He dipped a finger into his pocket and pulled out the ring below the level of the table, blocked from her view by the enormous bouquet.

"This is old-fashioned," he said, "but my people are old-fashioned." These were the words he'd rehearsed. He'd left nothing to chance, so that freezing up would not be an option. He rose from his seat, knelt beside her and held up the ring, its brilliant blue stone catching the light. She gasped and her hands flew to her mouth. Whatever her reaction now, there was nothing to do but continue.

"Kathryn Elizabeth Janeway," he said without any pause, so that she'd have to hear him out, "I love you and nothing is going to change that. Now that we are finally free of command, will you do me the honor of being my wife?" There it was, every word of it. Now she could do with him what she would, and he could go to his grave knowing that he'd tried. He shut his eyes and let out the breath he'd been holding. Her next words couldn't have surprised him more.

"_What about Seven_?" She let her hands fall away from her face and held them in front of her, palms up, in a gesture of supplication and total bafflement.

"What about her?" he asked in almost equal confusion. How could she possibly know about Seven? Seven herself would never have – and then realization dawned. His face darkened. "What did the Admiral tell you?"

Kathryn dropped her hands into her lap and her shoulders slumped. Chakotay let the hand brandishing the ring rest on one of her knees. This was not the climax – positive or negative – for which he'd prepared himself.

"She said that you'd – " Kathryn breathed deeply, grasped the edge of the table and forced out the words, "that she would – "

"That she'd hurt me?" he prompted.

She looked at him without moving any other part of her body, a study in tension. "That you'd marry her," she answered in a whisper. His whole face opened in an expression of astonishment.

"That I'd _what?_" he burst out. He nearly dropped the ring, casting his eyes around the room as if looking for an explanation for her extraordinary statement. His position down on one knee was getting uncomfortable, so he reached for his chair and pulled it under him where he was, facing her. "That – that conniving old _bat!" _he spat out.

"Chakotay," Kathryn said and put a firm hand on his arm, regaining her composure a little. "Whatever she may have said, she just sacrificed herself for us."

He took a few more deep breaths and tried to corral his thoughts enough to speak. In a moment, he took up the challenge again. "She told Seven that she'd hurt me. Seven tried to break up with me over it."

That look again on Kathryn's face: Kazon at the door. Even more disturbing was how quickly she mastered it and nodded. "Well, of course she was manipulating us all into doing what she wanted. You shouldn't let it worry you." Kathryn wagged a teasing finger, not cheerful but eternally capable of bravado. "Temporal prime directive – I warned you what a nuisance it is!"

This would never work. She was carefully not looking at the ring and had turned her shoulders away from him, back toward the table, as if his proposal was just an embarrassing lapse in propriety. He had to make her understand that he was serious. He had to make her answer seriously. "Kathryn," he lowered his voice, aiming for gravitas, "you haven't answered my question."

She examined her enchiladas, opened and closed her mouth, and attacked her napkin again, this time with both hands.

"You – " she began, but her voice was shaking. She swallowed and started again, eyes on her food. "You were thinking of what the Admiral said. You have to forget about that. There's no reason you or Seven will get hurt now. Your lives will be much safer." It was a perfect speech, delivered with complete composure, except that she wouldn't look at him and was on the verge of tearing her heavy cloth napkin down the middle.

"Kathryn," he scolded her. He tucked the ring back into his vest, forcibly rescued the napkin and deposited it on the other side of the table so that he could fold her hands into his. "Let me be perfectly clear, and then if you really want to tell me no, you're going to have to say it in plain words. I love _you._ I do not love Seven. I ended it today and neither of us was the least bit upset."

Kathryn's hands twitched in his, but she didn't pull away. "Just like that? Is she okay?" she said in that businesslike tone she relied on for any discussion about the crew.

He let his head sag. It was a physiological reflex, her selfless concern for her crew. She'd have the same reactions in her sleep. "She's fine. It would be closer to the truth to say that we both ended it. Nobody's heart is broken. Seven doesn't have the first clue what love is and my heart – well, it was never available to give away. And she knew it. 'It is perfectly logical. You wish to form a pair bond with Captain Janeway,' she said to me, just like that, like we were talking about away mission teams." Chakotay laughed. The beginnings of a smile formed at the corners of Janeway's mouth.

"Logical. Is that what this is? The practical thing to do?" Her question sounded like a little girl's voice, the first time he'd ever heard such vulnerability from her. She looked even tinier than usual, out of uniform, slumping against her chair inside the long blue dress.

His paralyzed heart began to beat again. The smile was sneaking back into his voice as he tried to keep it off his face. Her anguish at the idea of him and Seven, regrettable as it was, told him most of what he needed to know. He shook his head. "Whatever form of hereditary insanity got me to come over here with a ring tonight, it had nothing to do with logic or practicality. You should have seen me in my quarters half an hour ago. It was like marching out to fight the Cardassians again!"

"Flattering," she smirked.

He was beginning to feel warmth in her hands, to match the rising pink in her cheeks, like she was coming back to life from stasis. He held up the ring again. "Now if you wouldn't mind addressing the command decision at hand?"

"Marry you?" She fixed her eyes on the ring now, as if it had just appeared out of mid-air. Her left hand crept out to touch the beautiful stone. The look on her face was so rapt that he wondered if she could possibly remember that day in the market. He'd always assumed that it was just a passing fancy to her, even though it was marked in his memory as a day of tremendous significance, the instant he'd decided that one day, if fate ever gave him the chance to offer it, he'd have a ring ready for her. Then she shook her head with a shocked expression. "How can we get married? We've never so much as kissed."

Now he smiled for real. He knew that look. She wasn't disputing the idea, she was negotiating terms. She was his. "You're welcome to try out anything you see here." He gestured expansively at himself. "But Kathryn, I've been waiting seven years for a chance to close this deal. I'm not going to give all those dashing Starfleet officers back on Earth a moment's chance at you if I can help it."

At that, she smiled too. "If that's your goal, Commander," she lifted her chin, this time with a sweet expression meant only for him, and pressed her lips together with a radiant look he had never seen before, "you'd better put that ring on me now." And she extended her hand.

-END-

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